10 Expert Solutions for a Smarter, Cleaner U.S. Electric Grid: Live @ the PM-NSF Bridges to the Future Summit

Oct 1, 2009

ARLINGTON, Va. — We're settled into the webcast studio here for the mammoth expert-fest that is "Bridges to the Future," a cross-country conference PM is hosting with the National Science Foundation as an extension of our special report, "Rebuilding America."

You can follow the action with streaming video all day right here, but there was an important question just answered at this afternoon's first session: How do we cope with a rapid rise in demand for electricity, while avoiding potentially massive outages? Three of the country's top experts offered these proposals for making power distribution dependable, eco-friendly and blackout-proof. Have your own question for our panelists? Leave it in the comments section below, and they'll come back to answer them! —Erik Sofge

Roger Anderson /// Lamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryAdjunct Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Director, Edison Program at the Center for Computational Learning Systems at Columbia University

• Smart Appliances: We need to address the electric economy of the future. People are familiar with energy star ratings, but we're about to enter an energy double-star world, where some appliances aren't just energy-efficient, but smart enough to turn off four an hour a day during certain situations.

• Storing Renewable Power: In places like Texas, we've already seen what can happen when the grid relies heavily on renewables, like wind power. At one point, there was so much wind-generated output that a number of standard power plants went offline for maintenance. Then, when the wind stopped blowing for a few days, those plants weren't ready to immediately start running again. Solar power faces the same issues. The answer is to develop better storage for renewable power sources, such as more efficient batteries.

• Computer Models: When Lexus wants to make a better car, they first build a complete computer model. We need to do the same for electrical grids. This can be hugely challenging—in New York City, for example, there are 5 million nodes within city limits. There are massive computational problems involved, but those models need to be generated.

• Backup Output: As electric cars become more popular, we can try to employ them as backup generation. In other words, if the system is approaching peak load, we can use electric cars to actually supply the grid with power.

• Increased Generation: We can put a tremendous amount of intelligence in the system, but none of that produces or transmits any energy. The reliability of the grid has to be handled with new generation. By increasing intelligence, we have better optimization, and better economic benefits, and we can squeeze the last element out of that generation. However, we still need that additional generation.

• Corrective Grid Operation: Events can happen in milliseconds, so there's no way for an operator to take corrective action, whereas computers can. The transmission system has to focus on avoiding these cascading events. For example, you could isolate parts of the grid that are in trouble, to make sure it doesn't cascade to other parts. In 2003, the blackout could have been contained to the Cleveland area, and limited to a few million people instead of the 50 million that the blackout eventually affected. With a faster system that recognizes cascading events before it's too late, a problem can be headed off before it turns into a disaster.

• Smarter People: We can talk about how intelligent the grid should be, but it won't happen unless we have the right people, with the proper education, to install the necessary infrastructure. We're simply not training enough researchers and engineers.

James Momoh /// Howard UniversityProfessor
Director, Center for Energy Systems and Control

• Optimized Grids: We are looking to create an optimization strategy to predict what is going to happen to the grid. With the right power flow algorithms, these systems will be able to adapt to new situations and problems as they appear.

• Develop the Protocols: We need public awareness, education, and regulations before we can create intelligent software and devices. Regulations will help, but we also have to ask legislators to pass laws to support the research that can make this happen. In other words, we need human intelligence and grid intelligence to converge.

• Better Distribution Infrastructure: Once the protocols are in place, and the optimization algorithms and strategies are making for a more reliable and efficient grid, we have to improve the infrastructure at the distribution level. That means adding devices like distribution transformers, which are smaller transformers located closer to the home. It also means automating many of the controls at the distribution levels, so that problems that are normally handled manually can be fixed much more quickly, without human intervention.

Have your own question for our panelists? Leave it in the comments section below, and they'll come back to answer them!

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